


All the Best is Yet to Come

by noxic



Category: I Wish You All the Best - Mason Deaver
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Other, Personal Growth, Timeline Fic, cw: Implicit Transphobia, the De Backers’ A+ Parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 08:35:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21250496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxic/pseuds/noxic
Summary: Nine years in the life of Benjamin De Backer.(AU where Ben doesn't come out in high school.)





	All the Best is Yet to Come

I’m sixteen, lost and anxious and depressed, balancing carefully on the edge of inaction and fear when the term pops up in my tumblr feed for the first time. Nonbinary. Neither man nor woman. Something else. The post includes a link to a popular vlogger who has hours of content devoted to the subject. My hands shake as I click through their videos on YouTube.

There’s a rushing sound that fills my ears and the world feels suddenly bigger and suddenly smaller, too, as if reality is starting to collapse on itself with my stuttering heart at the point of singularity.

I start to cry. I’ve never felt so free, and I’ve never felt so trapped. Downstairs in the kitchen, I can hear my parents making dinner together like they always have. The room next door to mine is quiet and empty.

-

I’m eighteen, and my fingers curl into involuntary fists when people talk about me. “He’ll be getting acceptance letters any day now,” says Mom to Dad over coffee in the morning. “Do you know if he’s applied for scholarships yet?” Dad asks whenever the topic of tuition comes up. They talk about me a lot these days.

My throat begins to itch each time, like there’s something stuck inside that needs to be clawed out by force, ripped from flesh like a parasitic worm. “Please listen to me,” it would say once exposed to open air. “I’m not a boy, and I’ll never be a man. I’m not sorry for being what I am, but I’m sorry that it’s not what you wanted me to be.”

The worm would wriggle like a salted slug. “I’m nonbinary,” it would say, because it wouldn’t have the courage to say both “I’m sorry that I lied to you” and “I”m sorry that I’m telling you the truth.”

I leave the itch unscratched. There is no worm. Graduation comes and goes. I get into college. I’m majoring in economics. It’s worse than a worm--it’s like there’s a ghost possessing me by day, pulling my mouth into a smile and my long arms into the sleeves of a blazer even when the weight of a rotten lie threatens to press down hard enough to kill. At night, it takes a break only to be replaced by the vague sensation of being lost like a crumbling raft on the open ocean. Hopeless.

Every day away at college, I call my mom. I go to class. I do my homework. I doodle in the margins of my notes. I end up drawing a lot of birds during freshman year. I don’t make any friends.

-

I’m twenty, and economics is the second entry on my list of things that make me want to kill myself. I have a breakdown in the school therapist’s office that gets me a referral to a more long-term psychological professional and a major-change request form to take to the administrative building. I don’t know how to tell Mom. I don’t know if I _ can _tell Dad.

The major change goes through, and I find myself in first-year studio art courses come spring. I sell my econ textbooks and buy art supplies with the cash. For the first time in a long time, it feels like I’m doing something right.

I don’t follow through on the referral to a therapist, but I keep the slip of paper with the phone number tucked between the pages of a sketchbook I’ve had since high school whose pages still haven’t run out.

-

I’m twenty-one, and not telling Dad about the major change is no longer an option. He starts to ask about my classes, and lying to his face would be so much worse than lying by omission. He’s angry at me, of course. He yells for nearly an hour over the phone about wasted time, wasted money, and wasted potential . It’s only the last thing that makes me feel like I’m boiling alive from the inside out. He asks what I was thinking, and my answer isn’t good enough.

“He’s throwing away his life,” he says to Mom, spitting out the words like they’re leaving a bad taste in his mouth.

It’s the last straw, and I end the call with hot tears streaking down my face. He tries to call back once, but he doesn’t try a second time when I send him straight to voicemail. I cry myself tired in the darkness of my bedroom before braving the apartment common area to grab my wallet and slip out the door. I take the bus to one of the many liquor stores in the campus area. I don’t usually drink, so I don’t know what to buy when I walk in. Vodka seems like a good choice, so I pick up a plastic bottle of something inexpensive. The person at the register eyes my ID skeptically, and I don’t blame him.

I get drunk that night for the first time ever, alone in my room with a bottle of shitty vodka and store-brand cranberry juice. Mom and Dad don’t call me back. In the early hours of the morning, still awake and getting sloppy as the liquor courses through me, I start to wonder whether they ever will. At least if they don’t, I won’t have to ever tell them that I plan to disappoint them even more. Maybe they’ll keep the image of a misguided son led astray by flights of fancy in their collective memory. They’ll think of me the way they always have, and they’ll talk about me the way they talk about Hannah. They won’t.

-

I’m twenty-one and one month. I’m twenty-one and two months. I’m twenty-one and three months. Dad doesn’t call. I can’t decide if I’m relieved or not.

When I turn twenty-one and four months, I’m invited to a party by one of my roommates who seems to have noticed that I’ve turned into even more of a recluse. It’s obviously pity--I can see it in her eyes. But I’m okay with that. I’m twenty-one years and four months old, and I’ve never been to a party. I take her up on the offer.

It’s a house party thrown by a bunch of obnoxiously rich fraternity members, and they make me fork over ten dollars at the door while my roommate walks in without stopping. Only guys pay cover, I remember. I already want to go home, but I just paid ten dollars to get in here. May as well check it out.

My roommate disappears without a trace, and I figure this is where her pity ends. She’s done her job by dragging me into this pit of noise and light and body heat that borders on oppressive. Now it’s up to me.

I hide. I find a table with open cases of beer and help myself, not caring whether it’s a social faux pas. I hunt down a secluded corner and take sips from the can while trying not to grimace at the taste. I try to let the overpowering bass of the music being blasted through the speaker system seep into my bones and drown out everything else going on around me. My eyes slip shut after a while, and I try to lose myself in the way the music pulses beneath my fingertips through the thin aluminium of the beer can in my hands.

A gentle hand on my shoulder pulls me sharply from my stupor. My eyes blink open to see a girl with soft brown eyes and turquoise fingernails standing over me. She asks if I’m okay, and her voice sounds like water in a cistern, smooth and clear and resonant. It cuts through the haze of party noise, and it brings me back to myself enough to give a confident reply.

“No,” I say. “Not at all.”

It’s not the right answer, obviously. That’s _ never _ the right answer when a stranger asks if you’re okay and you aren’t literally dying. But it’s the truthful one, and it’s the only thing I can think to say in response to this stranger’s penetrating voice. She looks astonished, and she says nothing else for a moment that stretches out far too long. She looks behind her at another girl who’s standing there in a halo of black and blue braids and sparkling eyeshadow, and wordlessly, they start to move.

“Come on,” says the first girl after a beat, taking me by the hand with a tenderness that makes me melt into it without a thought. “Let’s go get some air.”

They lead me out the front door and past the line of people waiting to get in. When we get out to the sidewalk, they don’t stop until the hypnotic rhythm of the party’s music fades into the background.

They tell me to sit on the sidewalk a few blocks from the house, and I do because I have nothing to lose at this point. The girl with the voice like a sabre puts one hand on my back and sits beside me. “Hey,” she says. “I’m Sophie.” She gestures to her friend. “This is Mel. You looked like you needed help. Are you drunk?”

I shake my head. She asks if I’m high, and the answer is the same. This seems to pacify her slightly and she starts to ask questions like we’re classmates sitting next to each other in an intro course playing icebreaker games. I tell her my name, my major, my class, and it turns out we’re the same age. Then she asks for my pronouns, and the world begins to fall out from underneath me.

The words are on my tongue, but instinct has me freezing up before they make their way to open air. I know the answer. I can’t say it. All I can think of is the goddamn worm eating tunnels through my guts, dying to get out and scream it to the world.

Sophie doesn’t push it. I think she sees something in me and decides it isn’t worth it. She asks if I came to the party with anyone, and all I can do is laugh. Did I?

“You don’t have to help me,” I say in lieu of a proper response. “I can make it home alone.”

But they don’t let me. Sophie insists that I come with them to their shared apartment, since they were heading home anyways. I’m hesitant, but she says they’re watching shoujo anime and drinking wine, and it sounds up my alley enough that I can’t see a reason to say no. We end up passing out together on their couch around 3am, halfway through Yuri on Ice and several bottles of rosé later. In the morning, we exchange numbers and Mel drives me back to my apartment. My roommate still isn’t home.

I brush my teeth, take a shower, and decide that now is a good a time as any to start getting my shit together. I send a text to the newly-formed group chat that I wouldn’t have dreamed of sending the day before. _ My pronouns are they/them. _

I even send a smiley face.

-

I’m twenty-two, and my parents are speaking to me again. They came around after about six months of radio silence. I didn’t apologize and neither did they. We just don’t talk about what happened.

I’m twenty-two and I have friends. Meleika and Sophie are the best, and if I were religious I would thank God every day for them. Meleika calls me Benji, which I allow even though it hurts a little to think about the other girl who used to call me that. Sophie paints my nails to match her own. We all get together on the weekends to binge TV shows and eat unhealthy food. They even use the right pronouns when they talk about me. It’s like a dream come true.

It’s like a dream until it isn’t. This year I live alone in a studio apartment near campus. My parents have a key.

It’s a Sunday morning when everything goes to shit. Mel and Sophie had spent the night before, and we had all crawled into my bed together to watch The Good Place. We wake up in a tangled heap of limbs to the sound of Dad screaming about expectations and disgust and shame while Mom stands in the doorway with her hands covering her open mouth. Before we can explain (not that they want to hear it), Dad comes over to the bed and pulls me out by my hair. He doesn’t seem to register that I’m fully dressed in pajamas. He ignores that Mel and Sophie are as well, too busy as he is with dragging me into the bathroom, throwing me into the shower, and turning on the cold spray full blast despite my protests.

Mel and Sophie are screaming. Mom is crying. I feel myself beginning to shut down. My neighbor from across the hall hears all the commotion and comes running to help the girls to pull my dad off of me. I’ve never met him before, and I’m sure this is a great first impression.

They pull him out of the bathroom and into the living room, and there’s so much screaming that I can’t be certain of who’s saying what.

The guy across the hall throws Dad out of the door and shuts it, but Mom is still there, looking more scared than I’ve ever seen her. She looks from me to the door and all around the room before coming up to me with her hands out like she wants to do something to make this better. I’m soaking wet and shivering, and I’m vaguely aware of Sophie throwing a bath towel over my head, but everything is still too much to handle. Meleika has no pity for my mother and tears into her while the guy across the hall pulls out his phone to call the cops.

“Don’t,” I say weakly before he can press the call button. “Please. I’ll deal with it.”

Guy across the hall looks skeptical, but nods and puts his phone back in the pocket of his shorts. He doesn’t accept my apology for the chaos, instead insisting that we exchange numbers in case I need anymore help dealing with the situation.

“Family shit can be tough,” he says sagely. “I know how it is, so don’t worry about it.” He reiterates my freedom to call anytime, and as he walks out the door I catch a glimpse of two interlocking mars symbols tattooed across the exposed skin of his right calf. _ Oh _.

I turn back to my mom, whose face is pink like she’s spent all day in the sun. In a way, she has--Meleika tends to have that effect on people, burning through the surface of them till the heat of her passion seeps into the muscle and bone below. Mom looks at me as if for help, and Meleika’s righteous anger cuts off abruptly when I approach, replaced instantly by a gentle concern that softens every angle in her face.

“Tell him he can come back if he apologizes,” I say to Mom. “He doesn’t get to act like that here. I’m an adult.”

She seems taken aback by this, but swallows and ducks her head as she goes--presumably--to fetch my father.

“You don’t have to talk to them after that,” Sophie says. Meleika’s face alternates between rage and concern, but Sophie is all steel. Businesslike. Intense.

“I think I do,” is all I say.

Dad comes back in with Mom following behind like a duckling. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her act like this--but then the thought occurs to me that it might just be that I’ve never seen her from this perspective before. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her scared. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my dad get violent. I don’t think they’ve ever seen me be brave. It’s new experiences all around.

“That was uncalled for,” I say. I try to muster some of Sophie’s ice or Meleika’s spark, but my voice just comes out small. “You don’t get to treat me like that. I’m not a little kid.”

“No,” says Dad, and his voice is neither ice nor fire--it’s venom, dripping sickly from his teeth and forming puddles on the floor around him. “You’re a man, and a man should be responsible enough to have some self-control. You do _ not _ go to bed with a woman before marriage, and you _ certainly _ do not go fooling around with _ two _ of them.”

“It wasn’t like that,” I say before Sophie and Meleika can step in. Both of them want to, I can already feel it in the way they tense up at my sides. “We weren’t having sex. I’ve never had sex, and I don’t have any immediate plans to, not that it’s actually any of your business. Besides which,” my throat pulls tight as the words make their way out, “I’m not a man. I’ve never been a man. I’m nonbinary.”

The silence hangs there for a while. Dad’s face does something I can’t describe, but it hurts nonetheless. Eventually he gets up without a word and walks out of the apartment. Looking lost, Mom follows him. Before she leaves, she mumbles through a quiet “I’m sorry.” That does nothing to assuage the sting of rejection building quickly into something like agony inside my gut.

They disappear down the hallway. They don’t call that evening, or that week, or even in the next six months. I’m twenty-two and the worm has breached the surface of my skin, leaving holes in the muscle where it feasted. I’ve grabbed it, pulled it free and let it loose into the world. Now all that’s left for me to do is heal.

-

I’m twenty-two and I find my sister Hannah on Facebook with remarkable ease. I used to have her phone number, once upon a time, but it’s back in my old room at home stuffed between the mattress and the box spring of the bed. Social media is all I really have left. I scroll through what little of her page I can see without being friends. Her profile picture is of her and some guy I’ve never seen before. Her boyfriend? Husband? Is my sister married? Does she have any kids? Has she lived an entire life without me?

I’m twenty-two, and I'm mature enough to send a friend request without having a total mental breakdown. That comes later, when it’s been four hours and she still hasn’t responded, and I’m convinced she must hate me because of our parents. It’s a small breakdown, so I count it as a win.

She messages me back eventually, though, and it’s with the formal politeness of a stranger, or an old relative you’ve never met before despite your grandparents being close. Formality makes my stomach turn, though, so I cut straight to the chase and ask if we can meet somewhere. I can’t tell from her messages whether she’s cool or not, but she agrees to the meeting and that’s enough for now.

-

“You’ve gotten big.”

This morning I rode two hours in Meleika’s car to get to this Waffle House near the halfway point from Hannah’s town to mine. Meleika and Sophie are seated at a booth a little ways away, and I keep catching Sophie’s brown eyes over Hannah’s shoulder as I glance around, all nerves and broken eye contact.

“I’m twenty-two,” I say quietly. “I’ll be twenty-three soon.”

Hannah’s gentle smile falters and I curse myself for making this awkward. It doesn’t have to be weird, but that seems to be the only speed I run on these days. Or maybe that isn’t true. Maybe it _ does _ have to be weird, because that’s where life has landed both of us. Sitting in a goddamn Waffle House fourteen years estranged.

She’s gotten big, too. I remember her as a teenager, with frizzy hair and bony hands and not quite finished with puberty. Now she looks like a real adult—her hair is cut into a style and her clothes are flattering to the very adult shape of her body. She looks a bit like mom.

“How’s everything going?” she tries again. And _ shit _, she actually seems like she’s trying, and I’m about to make it weird again.

“Not great,” I say. “I’m nonbinary. I’m pretty sure Mom and Dad have completely disowned me.”

There’s no immediate recognition in Hannah’s eyes, which I take as a decent sign, at least. She hasn’t started screaming at me about God and nature and “basic biology” (not that I expected her to), but she also doesn’t seem to fully get what I’m saying.

“What do you mean?” she asks, eyebrows bent down towards the center of her face.

“My gender,” I say. “I’m not a man. I don’t identify on the gender binary. I’m queer.” And yeah, that word finally does it, and her ears go a little bit pink.

“Oh,” she says. “Right, uh...pronouns?”

I smile a bit at that. “They/them.”

She nods and there’s a silence, and it’s awkward until she seems to register the rest of what I’ve said. “You told Mom and Dad?”

I nod, and the tears are already flowing as the memory comes unbidden to the forefront of my mind.

Hannah springs to life, coming around to my side of the booth to side beside me and put steadying hands on my shoulders as they start to shake. She starts asking questions, but her voice stays low and reassuring. She asks about my living situation and my support system and seems relieved to find that I live on my own.

I hadn’t even thought about that. What would I have done if I was still living at home? What would I do if they put me out on the street? I’m glad I won’t ever have to find out.

She asks if I’ll need help paying my tuition or handling my bills, and it makes my stomach turn to think about it. On the one hand, the answer will probably be yes. On the other hand, I don’t want Hannah to think that I’ve reached out to her just because I need the money.

“I don’t want to think about it right now,” I manage to say, and I’m surprised by how level it sounds. “I just wanted to see you.”

Her eyes fill tears of her own, and she wraps me in a hug that lasts a long time.

-

I’m twenty-three, and I’ve started seeing a therapist once a week. I have a job. I have friends. Now that Hannah is back in my life, I even have a family again.

Her husband’s name is Thomas, and he’s a high school teacher. He’s big and imposing compared to me, but he has a kind face and warm eyes that put you right at ease when he looks at you.

I don’t know what I want to do when I graduate, and I’ve been in college for nearly five years. Meleika graduated last semester and has since moved on to law school. Sophie is still in undergrad like me--she’ll walk away with a full-on double major, though. There’s less time in the day for each of us, but we still make Saturdays happen. We’re playing cards with some magical girl anime on TV in the background when they tell me that they’ve officially started dating.

I tell them it took them long enough, and we pop a bottle of cheap sparkling wine—“It’s not technically champagne unless it’s _ from _Champagne,” Meleika had explained unprompted—to celebrate.

-

I don’t hear a word from Mom or Dad until after graduation.

I’m twenty-four and living in the spare room of Hannah’s house with her and Thomas until I get a permanent job. The art teacher at Thomas’ school is preparing to go on an extended vacation, and they’re going to need a replacement. I’ve already filled out my application. In the meantime, I take commissions on tumblr and try to scrape together enough content for a YouTube channel, because student loan debt is no joke and I’m already mooching off my sister enough as it is.

I get an email out of the blue one day with Mom’s name on it, and it shakes me up so badly that I have to lay down for twenty minutes before I feel brave enough to open it. It makes me feel crazy.

The message is all I could have expected after two straight years of full-on no-contact. _ We’re so sorry _ , she writes. _ We love you. We just want what’s best for you. Please respond. Please come back to us so we can be a family _.

I want to send a reply immediately, but my hands shake badly and I can barely see through the tears that won’t let up. _ Liar _ , I want to say. _ Why do you think I would ever come back to you? _

I’m an adult. I’m not their child anymore, and I was certainly never their son. I don’t have to do anything in the world but die, and I don’t plan to give her what she wants at my own expense.

I end up responding fairly quickly once the worst of the breakdown is over. Maybe it isn’t the healthiest strategy, but I decide to go for scathing in the way I draft the reply.

_ Is Dad willing to apologize for what he did to me? To my face? _

I send my response within an hour of receiving her email. It takes her two days to respond to mine.

_ Please meet with us _, she writes. That’s definitely a no, and I’m jaded enough at this point in my life that I don’t expect it to get much better than that.

_ No _ , I write back to her. _ I won’t, because I don’t have to and you can’t make me. I’m independent. I’m a kick-ass nonbinary college graduate about to walk into a full-time job. I have friends and a family and all the happiness that you two never wanted to let me have, and I made it entirely from scratch. I wish you all the best in your future endeavors. _ I want to add something cruel, like, “Congratulations on your empty nest,” but my conscience tells me that’s too much. I almost wish it had been Dad who’d decided to reach out, because I’m petty and bitter enough to hold a grudge for the feeling of his fingers twisted up in my hair, ripping out strands and pulling at the skin, and rubbing his face in his self-inflicted loneliness would have been delicious in a sadistic and probably unhealthy sort of way. But of course, he doesn’t. And he probably never will.

-

I’m twenty-four, and I’m an art teacher. I get to spend my days watching kids create new things and discover the world in bits and pieces, good and bad alike. I’ve only been at the school for a month before a senior girl who somehow just _ gets _ watercolors asks me for a letter of recommendation for a scholarship program. I write it gladly and watch her face light up when I hand it over. I’m there for two months before I get my first coming-out.

They’re an awkward little slip of a thing, practically swimming in an oversized gray hoodie that puts my emo years to shame. Their hair is buzzed on one side and dyed green at the tips, already fading into bleached blond from washing. “Mx. De Backer?” they say shyly, one hand in the pocket of their jeans and the other wrapped anxiously around their lanyard ID. “I think I’m nonbinary.”

I don’t cry then and there, because that wouldn’t be helpful for the student. Instead, we sit and talk until the activities bus arrives at 5pm. They walk away with one of my pride buttons stuck to the outside of their backpack. I wait to cry until I’m in the car with Thomas on the way home. He asks what’s wrong, but doesn’t press the issue when I can’t talk around my blubbering. When we get back to the house, I hug Hannah tightly for a long, long time.

-

I’m twenty-five years and five hours old, and my friends from college have come into town to see me. Sophie works for a big non-profit as a researcher. It isn’t fancy, and it definitely won’t make her rich--but, she says, it’s good work and she enjoys it, and it pays the bills when all is said and done. Meleika is still in law school, and she looks burnt out even as we sit down to dinner on my birthday. “It’s hard,” she says, and the look I get from Sophie on the side lets me know that that’s an understatement. “It’s what I wanted, though. My parents are happy, and I think I will be, too, after it’s all finished.” She grabs Sophie’s hand and they lean into each other, and it’s obvious she means it.

We do cake and a few small presents with Thomas and Hannah, but afterwards the night is all ours. They take me out to a club they’ve heard good things about, and we alternate between dancing and drinking until my teacher instinct kicks in and has me ushering my friends towards the door. Fun is all well and good, I remind them, as long as you’re _ responsible _.

“Wait, wait,” Sophie says between giggles as we exit the club. “We’ve gotta visit Nathan! He lives here, I’m pretty sure. Mel, he lives here, right?”

Meleika, more sober at this point than either of us, nods. “Yeah, he should be working tonight. I’ll get an Uber.”

I expect to end up at another night club, but the Uber drops us off at an expo center a few miles away. The sign in the parking lot advertises the OutSide Convention, which I’ve never heard of. The girls surprise me by pulling around to the back of the venue. We say hello to a few workers there on our way in, and Mel and Sophie both laugh with them like old friends. Once inside, we walk through a series of sickly yellow hallways that eventually lead us out onto the convention floor. The place is mostly empty at this time of night, except for the few stragglers hovering around vendor booths as they begin to break down. Mel and Sophie seem to know where they’re going, so I trust them to lead the way.

We end up outside the technical booth for a stage performance happening in one of the venue’s auditoriums. Mel knocks on the door four times in a distinct rhythm, and a short, heavy-set man with glasses opens it quietly, shushing the three of us as he gestures us in.

There’s a woman there, standing in front of a panel of screens and holding a tablet in one hand as she speaks into a headset. It’s clear she’s controlling something, though I don’t really understand what it is. At a console in front of a large window, another person sits with his back to the door, also wearing a headset as he presses buttons and flips the switches in front of him.

Meleika and Sophie each give a brief wave to the woman as we enter, and she (to my surprise) waves back instead of kicking us out immediately. “Nathan!” Sophie whisper-shouts. The person at the console doesn’t look back, but spares a wave in our direction. Mel and Sophie waste no time in sidling up to the person--Nathan--and I follow their example.

His name is Nathan Allan, Meleika explains in hushed tones, obviously trying not to disturb him as he works. He’s a lighting guy, and he’s one of her and Sophie’s best friends from high school. He’s going to be a movie director someday, she adds matter-of-factly.

The blue glow from the screens in front of Nathan Allan cast pale highlights across his dark skin. I flush when I realize I’m staring at it, but I don’t look away--he’s focused on his work anyways.

Sophie bugs Nathan with little comments, but Meleika doesn’t intrude. I decide to follow suit and entertain myself by watching the stage below.

My breath catches. My hands begin to shake just slightly. I reach out to grab Meleika’s wrist on instinct. She looks at me with concern and follows my gaze out the booth window.

It’s a live-show, that much is obvious. There are a couple minor celebrity YouTubers that I sort of recognize, but what stops me is the sight of a bright teal hijab and a too-familiar face. It’s Mariam Haidari. They’re actually _ here _, only a few hundred feet away. They’re telling a dramatic story that has the audience in stitches. I watch, completely entranced, until their story finishes and the bit is over. The performance lasts only a few minutes longer. After it ends, Nathan the lighting guy raises the house lights and the audience files out. Mariam Haidari disappears off the stage.

“You okay Benji?” Meleika asks. I realize there are tears in my eyes, and I wipe them away. Even Nathan is looking at me in concern. I catch sight of his face from the front, and I have to suppress a new wave of emotion because the boy is _ beautiful _. Even in the dim light of the booth, I catch the suggestion of amber in his brown eyes, and his lips look soft. His tightly curled hair has just a little bit of red dye at the end. There’s a sparkly earring in his left ear.

“I’m fine,” I choke out. My smile is probably watery. “Don’t y’all worry about me. Just a little emotional tonight. I didn’t know Mariam was performing here.”

“Do you know her?” Nathan asks.

“Them,” I correct on instinct.

“Right, sorry,” he says. “Do you know them personally?”

I shake my head. “Just followed them for a long time is all.” I allow myself a moment to breathe before remembering to introduce myself. “They/them pronouns,” I tack on as an afterthought. It’s gotten easier to say the words over time, and I feel just a little bit proud when I don’t stumble over them. Nathan shakes my hand, and I notice that his nails are clean and trimmed. His hands are soft, too.

“How long until the next show?” Sophie asks. Nathan explains that there’s a thirty minute gap before the 18+ panel, which will require a lot more of his attention. In the meantime, there’s a snack table in the back and he hasn’t had dinner yet, so he invites us to come along with him. We file out of the room quietly, leaving the woman and the other man to do whatever it is they’re doing in the booth.

In the first twenty minutes, I learn a lot about Nathan Allan. The girls talk about being in high school together, and they get him talking about his time studying film at UCLA before moving back to North Carolina. I also learn that he has dimples when he smiles, and his cheeks are dusted with freckles just a few shades darker than the rich brown of his skin. His mouth looks even softer in the light.

In the last ten minutes, I learn that Nathan Allan is an amazing person who does amazing things. We’re loitering around the snacks when he ducks out of sight for a moment before returning with _ actual _ Mariam Haidari in tow, tapping me on the shoulder to present me with the surprise.

I burst into tears on the spot.

-

I’m twenty-five years and eleven hours old by the time I make it home that night. There are two new phone numbers saved to my contacts. Mariam sends me a bitmoji of themself to use as their icon, which makes me scream. Nathan sends me a dog-filter selfie featuring his wide, sparkling grin to use for his, which makes me melt. I give Meleika and Sophie each a kiss on the cheek and a tight, tight hug at the end of the night, because I don’t know how else to say _ thank you for everything _ and _ I’d be lost without you _ without falling apart completely.

In bed that night, I text Nathan under the covers like a kid. He sends me cheeky remarks about all the movies I haven’t seen, and I return the favor by stumping him with questions about art history until he concedes. He suggests that we try to broaden our horizons together--he’ll take me to the movies next weekend if I take him to an art museum afterwards. The suggestion stills my heart, and it takes all my willpower to fight off the spiral of self-doubt that threatens to consume me at the thought. I send back _ absolutely :) _ before I fall too far down the rabbit hole.

He sends me a winky-face and a heart emoji, and suddenly I’m not twenty-five. I’m sixteen and giddy, and there’s a lightness in my center that I can’t remember ever feeling. I’m eighteen and twenty and twenty-two, unsure but optimistic, and all the bad things feel like a distant memory, like a tide receding from the shoreline on an empty beach where I can lay out across the sand and feel the gentle breeze ruffling my hair without a care in the world. I’ve made it. I’m _ here _. I have a family, friends, and a job. I have prospects and hobbies and a burgeoning new relationship to tend. My heart is full.

I fall asleep still holding my phone, and as it buzzes one last time with a message I won’t see until morning, I think about sixteen-year-old Ben and their awkward angles, their shadowed eyes and baggy hoodies and undiagnosed depression pushing them slowly and steadily towards something dark and scary in the night. To the image of them that comes unbidden to my mind’s eye, I whisper gently, _ It’ll be okay, kiddo. All the best is yet to come. Just wait _.

The soft darkness in the bedroom wraps itself around me, and I slide off into a deep and gentle rest.

**Author's Note:**

> It gets better, kids. When you're a Depressed Teen™ it feels hopeless to think about the Big Picture, because you can't see it ever happening for you. Trust me, though. Life finds a way and things work themselves out. All you've gotta do is hang in there and push through.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the fic <3


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